Monthly Archives: April 2021

Reformed, Recalled or Illusory Memories in the Post-Truth Era: A family affair

Posted on by
Reply

Continuing my rereading excursion, last week I started with Tom Robbins’ awesome “Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates” but Amazon, which I loathe and ought not to patronize (as I ought not to patronize Facebook), facilitated my recuperation of a bunch of Robert Heinlein philosophical novels (they really are more philosophical than science fiction) which had been lost to me many decades ago when a former friend’s now ex-wife decided they were demon inspired and confined them to the pit.  And so I’ve ordered duplicates, mostly used (for some reason I like them more when they’re used) and they’ve started arriving. 

I really wanted to delve back into Lazarus Long (as I approach the three quarter of a century mark) but somehow, I got confused and “I will Fear No Evil” came first.  I hope Heinlein`s writing style is not catching.  What was a delight in my youth frequently seems lacking polish and seems tedious now as I too have embarked in the writers’ art, but the themes remain challenging and fascinating and daring, and every once in a while, … a relevant pearl of wisdom drops.  In this case (excuse the long prelude; … I hate long preludes), in the middle of page 174 of an extremely well worn, possibly fifth hand paperback copy, Ace Edition, 1987, the phrase:

“Nobody knows how memory works

except that everyone is sure he knows

and thinks all others are fools.”

That seems so relevant today, perhaps more than ever. 

I know the memories my children and my ex-wife share keep getting more and more strange until they’ve become completely divorced from those I recall.  To some extent, I believe that is based on the deliberate falsification of memory (see “Purportedly Recovered Memories”), now a science engaged in by former spouses (male and female) with the assistance of purported therapists, and of course, on a societal level, by the corporate media.  Political differences translate from the civic into the personal and into irreconcilable pasts that break up families, something I’ve experienced. 

My kids blame me and Trump, I opposed but did not hate him, at least, not enough for their “awoke” tastes.  So now I too am (and apparently always have been) a horrible human being. 

I don’t blame them, or hold it against them, but the consequences are the same.  And since we no longer communicate, the consequences seem unlikely to change.  The truth is not something to be explored lest it not agree with what they or I recall, or what they’ve been told over and over and over and over again. 

Something to think about as everyone around us, including those once most dear to us, morphs into very different beings.

Or is it us?

_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2021; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution. Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently a strategic analyst employed by Qest Consulting Group, Inc.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at http://www.guillermocalvo.com.

Ode to the Nether Region of the Ignominious Rattus Chordata

Posted on by
Reply

One ought not to be criticized for wondering just where distemperate individuals obtain their supply of “rats’ asses” from which they decline to be parted even over things for which they seem not to care.

Where are they kept?  Do they have any uses other than with respect to pejorative declamations?  If those who decline to dispose of them have none but still claim an unwillingness to surrender them, is that an example of actionable fraud or has it become acceptable deception, as in “selling stocks short”.

Are rats asses in short supply?  Given all the rats that populate most parts of the world, one would think not, but where can rats asses be obtained?  Are their specialized dispensaries?  Do they have uses other than in conjunction with morphological metaphors and similes?

Do rats’ asses have any intrinsic values to anyone or anything other than their original owners?  Given the frequency of allusions to them, might it be worthwhile to invest in rats’ asses, or perhaps, in rats’ asses’ futures?  Are they traded in any commodities exchange, perhaps in the Wuhan markets?

What might rats, were they given to pondering, think of all the attention given to that aspect of their physiogeny?  What does such interest say about those humans who seem so invested in them that they will not give them up?

Somewhat queer queries on a Sunday morning during an early spring, floating in the air at slightly more than seven thousand feet in the central range of the Colombian Andes.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2021; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently a strategic analyst employed by Qest Consulting Group, Inc.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at http://www.guillermocalvo.com.

Drifting Strands in a Stream of Consciousness Seeking a Tapestry

Posted on by
Reply

Once upon a midwinters eve in a valley set amidst towering glaciers not yet long ago lived a confused soul, not an unhappy soul but not a happy soul either, a very curious soul but doing little if anything to satiate that thirst.  It seemed to be waiting, not inactive but waiting, and many things came its way and many people, but time seemed to pass it by, as though something very important, something that dwarfed everything else was on the way but in its mind, it worried that perhaps it had already come and gone, that distracted, it’d missed it. Or her, or him or them, whatever it was. 

It felt rather than heard echoes and sensed rather than saw shadows, and waited while not really waiting, wondering if perhaps the thing it sought was inside rather than elsewhere, then it wondered whether there really was an elsewhere, whether perhaps nothing existed except for its imaginings, whether perhaps it was the primal dreaming plant it sometimes imagined, the primal dreaming plant that encompassed both eternity and infinity in a rather small space, kind of like the multiverse it sometimes imagined, as the multiverse might have been in the one quintillionth to the thousandth power of a second immediately after the Big Bang, but then realized that in that realm of possibilities, the Big Bang was also part of the dream of the eternal plant. 

Then it wondered whether the plant had flowers, and leaves, and roots, all, like it, seeking; waiting, wondering what they were for and why.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2021; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently a strategic analyst employed by Qest Consulting Group, Inc.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at http://www.guillermocalvo.com.

Some Days Are Just Hell, or, My Least Favorite Sabbath

Posted on by
Reply

Soooo, ….

It had been a lousy Friday. The worst of my somewhat brief physical sojourn what with being whipped, forced to carry a heavy piece of wood all over town, being whipped again, then nailed to a cross, then, as if that hadn’t been enough, stabbed in the ribs with a spear to see whether or not I’d enjoyed the experience.  I hadn’t but Dad had refused to give me a hand.  Then I’d been taken down from the cross, sprinkled with herbs, wrapped in linen and sealed in a damp, cold cave.  At least it was fairly dry.  Hell of a place to wake up in but in fact, Hell was where I awoke very early the next day, I think it was just after midnight.  For some reason they like midnight there.  It was hot!  Not the ideal place for a rest after a harrowing day.  Interesting people there though, in fact, almost everyone who had ever lived, except for the few Dad had teleported to the penthouse was there.

Lucifer, the old Roman god of light and truth was there complaining that he was being transmogrified into Dad’s prosecutor, Shaitan.  A bunch of Dad’s old, discarded servants were there as well asking me just how long eternity was going to last.  I did my best to ignore them (which wasn’t easy).  Adam and Eve were there of course, with all of their progeny, which, well, included everyone.  Cain and Abel had made up, it had all been a misunderstanding, no one knowing about death and all.  Dad had sort of forgotten to explain just what and how final it was.  Bummer.  For some reason, everyone felt I was there to save them but I really had no intention of sticking around.  I wasn’t too excited to return topside either, not after the week I’d had, but evidently, before Dad would let me return home, I had to finish off a forty day sentence, make a bunch of vague promises, etc.  But after that, I was definitely not coming back, no matter what they expected.

I was thirsty as, pardon the pun, Hell, but no wine was to be had there at any price, just filthy boiling water mixed with Sulphur, and the omnipresent smell of rotting eggs.  For some reason I have to stick around until after the Sabbath is completed.  It’ll feel like more than one day let me tell you!  At least three.

Who can understand Dad’s inscrutable ways?  I confess that I can’t.  He loves being mysterious and never says things straight out.  Hard to know what he wants, which causes a lot of problems because he hates it when he doesn’t get his way!  I remember when he blew up this city, then turned one of his followers to stone for turning around, and then, a while later, flooded the whole place for forty days and forty nights.  He seems to like the number forty.  He stuck me in the desert once for forty days and forty nights to see if I’d break, but after a while, I just kind of blanked out.

Anyway, I’ve got a while to kill here before I’m let out so I think I’ll circulate, maybe chat with Lucifer to find our his side of the story.  That ought to take a while.

Ouch!!!  That smarts.
_______

I was going to write this using a fake name, popular way back then, I had Don Rickles in mind (he was no fan of the protagonist), but, what the heck, he has Santa working for him so he already knows everything.  Here goes nothing.  © Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2021; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.  I hope “Dad” has developed a sense of humor.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently a strategic analyst employed by Qest Consulting Group, Inc.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at http://www.guillermocalvo.com.